Kiryas Yoel on 60 Minutes, Video

Diamond dealer robbed of 1/2 million dollars worth of uncut diamonds by a prostitute!

Next time, maybe, he will hang out in a Bais Medrash! 

The jeweler met a hooker at this bar before she fleeced him.

Hapless gem trader Kurt Kaiser lost out on a deal to sell a half million dollars worth of uncut diamonds, but really hit rock bottom when he despondently picked up a hooker — who took off with the gems. “I woke and thought ‘I’ve been screwed,’ ” Kaiser, 47, told The Post yesterday outside his home in Forest Hills, Queens.

He believes he was drugged by the woman, who was last seen on a hotel surveillance video with his briefcase in one hand and her heels in the other.

Kaiser met the sexy brunette while throwing back drinks at Whiskey Park on Central Park South — his third stop Monday night after blowing a deal to sell the rocks.

“I was sitting by myself having a last vodka and soda, and she came up and asked, ‘Mind if I join you?’ I said: ‘Hell, yeah!’ ”

He spent another 45 minutes at the bar with the 23-year-old Hispanic woman, who wore a short, black dress and high heels.

She suggested they go somewhere more comfortable — the Cosmopolitan Hotel in TriBeCa.

They took a cab and the woman had the driver stop at a CVS, where she used his credit card to buy a $500 gift card and a box of condoms.

Kaiser, who is not married, told cops that only then did he realize she was a hooker, but he carried on with the date anyway, sources said.

He told The Post he started feeling woozy around the same time.

“Whatever she drugged me with, it took effect very quickly,” Kaiser said.

Kaiser, who brought the briefcase full of diamonds to the bar, claims he never told the woman about the precious cargo.

When they got to the room, he removed the small bag containing 45 uninsured stones — 290 carats of diamonds — from his briefcase and hid them in a drawer, “because I was afraid she would steal them,” he said.

They had sex before he passed out.

When he woke up at around 6 a.m., she was gone, along with the stones, the certification documents, his passport, watch and sunglasses.

At least she left his wallet.

“It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said.

Kaiser told cops he put down $50,000 for the diamonds — and had two “investors” whose names he would not divulge.

He was planning to travel to Hong Kong today to try to sell them to another buyer, but now is offering a reward for their return.

Police sources said surveillance video from the hotel clearly shows the woman running down a hallway carrying his briefcase and her shoes.

Cops have dusted the room for prints and are checking a condom for her DNA.

“She probably doesn’t even know what she took,” Kaiser said.

“If she gives them back, I probably won’t press charges,” he said. “She can have someone drop them off at the 1st Precinct.”

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/heist_jeweler_hooker_screwed_me_hAftjlP6dN8etoX3M9bR6M#ixzz1sNRhkUSp

An Open Letter to the upcoming gathering by Gedolim to ban the internet!

It’s beautiful to see such an effort being made amongst our Rabbanim regarding an issue that is finally being taken seriously. It’s also great that we have finally realized the futility in banning something that was inevitably going to be a part of our lives. Our sages taught us long ago “ Ein gozrin gezeirah she'ein hatzibbur yecholim la'amod bo.“ (Halachic deciders should not promulgate an edict if most of the population will not follow the edict). The reason for this principle is simple; the general population will start to lose respect for authority. And while it’s 15 years too late, the past is the past and all we can do is learn from it. But learn from it we must!

This huge problem certainly needs a huge solution, but I’m terribly afraid we are heading for a huge disappointment. If what I read in the pamphlets is true and our hugesolution is filtering, then we have learned nothing from the past.

Filters sound good and make us feel good, but they are completely ineffective. A filter is only as effective as much as the person using it wants to be filtered. And while it’s a great way to stop pop-ups and inappropriate web-pages, it is irrelevant to the issue we are facing. I will be brief as to why filters don’t work by highlighting some facts people may be unaware of.

1.

1. TECHNOLOGICALLY- The Internet by design was created not to be filtered. By designing it as a web, no matter how much you try you can’t control the information. Look at the middle east countries where dictators were brought down by social networking. Of course they tried everything in their power to pull the plugs, but the Internet can’t be controlled. The MPAA tried to stop peer-to-peer file sharing and was never successful. The internet was designed in the 1960's using a system called packet switching so that traffic can always reroute itself, which makes censorship almost impossible.
2. PASSWORD - When I was just 17 and the web was first starting to explode my father was visited by one of the first “filter companies”. They wanted his haskama. During the demonstration my father asked me what I thought. I sat down at the computer and with a few clicks bypassed the filter. My father told them to come back when my child can’t disable the filter. They never came back. I wasn’t a computer genius and you don’t have to be one. Any child can learn to break even the most sophisticated password protection. All you need is for one person to figure it out and within seconds all his friends will too. And for those without friends they can google it. Monitoring software can be disabled just as easily. So can the “chavrusa system”. Don’t be fooled by the companies trying to sell you their products.
3. WIFI. Free unfiltered wireless internet is available almost anywhere you go. The current goal is to have wifi available free over the entire USA, as it is already in some cities. Any filter you have at home is irrelevant. Almost every new electronic device has wifi capability. And trying to password protect every one of them is an unrealistic goal.

I remember when some US senator came up with the idea to make inappropriate sites have a button that says “Click here if you are over 18”. He should be awarded the nobel prize for that brilliant idea!

Filtering and monitoring are necessary, and they work well in schools and public places, but if the point of this convention is about filters, then call it an expo and make it at the Jacob Javitz Center. Its time we deal with the new realities of the day and we therefore must look for real solutions.

Fortunately there are huge solutions but they take more effort than buying a $100 filter. It takes dedication and lots of time. The good news is, there are Rebbeyim and teachers that are willing to do it. We have B”H in our day a young generation of talent that is eager to help, but they need proper direction.

So, while Filters are important and sound great, I give it an F. An F because it will Fail us and an F because it willFool us into thinking we solved our problems.

The real solutions all start with an E and they have an Excellent track record.

Education, Excitement, Entertainment, Endearment, Exposure, Expression, Embracement and Enjoyment!

Education – We need to educate our children by teaching them why our Jewish values are superior to the values they see outside (or now, online). We need to teach them how to handle challenges that come their way and stop making believe it doesn’t happen. Life is about making choices and we need to teach our children how to how to choose wisely, including on the Internet. When a Rebbi or teacher is unable to acknowledge that his class is using the Internet, he can’t have a discussion about it. When social networking is not allowed, how do you teach online privacy and safety.

Excitement – We need to make our schools more exciting. There are countless organizations that are using technology to make yiddishkeit more engaging and fun; from interactive jewish learning to smart-boards in the classrooms. With the vast information available on kosher websites, there is so much useful and helpful content for everyone to make use of today.

Entertainment – We need to bring kosher entertainment back to our youth. Concerts, rallies, and overnight trips should be encouraged not banned. Yes, they may learn less now, but in the long run we will have children who love to be Jewish.

Endearment – We need EVERY child feel wanted, both by his family and school. We need to get rid of names like “kids at risk” and “off the derech”. All of us are at risk and we should never judge others as off the derech. Every parent is told never to call their child “bad” because then they will then act bad. Same with these labels, they accomplish nothing. No child wants to go to an “at risk school”. Rebbeyim should treat every child as at risk. Schools and parents have to accept every child no matter what level of religiosity they’re at. Never should we make a child feel unwanted because it will cause shame to the rest of the family or because it will give the school a bad reputation.

Exposure – In the words of Rav Hirsch, If you keep a child indoors all the time then the first time he goes outdoors he will catch a cold. Instead we must expose them as youngsters so that when they get older and leave the home and face the outside world they will be prepared.

Expression – we must allow our children to express themselves. That means they can ask any questions they have. They should decide the topic of the day and we should listen to what they feel. No student should feel guilty for asking something that’s bothering them. Just as a therapist always asks “tell me how YOU feel about it” we should do the same in the classrooms.

Embracement- we need to embrace technology because that’s our connection to the younger generation. This is the way they communicates and it’s not going to change. When you mock texting, you mock them. When you ban facebook you’re banning them and your distancing yourself from their world. As one teenager told me; “ I’m not addicted to my cellphone or facebook, I’m addicted to my friends,” and who of us isn't?

Enjoyment - Lastly, we need to make sure our children find enjoyment as being Jewish. Better that we have less tests and let the children have more fun, rather then have them think Judaism is boring and undesirable. Because those who don't find enjoyment in being Jewish will either leave the fold or stay Jewish but resentful inside, which may even be worse.

We need to remember the words of Chazal “Chanoch Lena’ar al Pi Darko”. This R' Hirsch says is the golden rule of education of which the Torah requires of us. We have to evaluate each child and see where his/her strengths are and then equip and train them early for that which they will practice when they have outgrown our guidance. Whether it’s the path we envisioned for them or not, we shouldn't focus on changing our kids but working with them. Read the words carefully “teach them according to their future path” not ours!

I once asked my father why they keep banning all Jewish events, and he told me, because it’s the easy way out. Blaming is also easy. Parents blame the schools and the schools blame the parents. We blame our kids friends and we blame our neighbors. Now we found something new to blame, technology, and it cant even defend itself! In a recent book entitled “Off the Derech” Faranak Margolese interviews many teens as to why they went off the Derech. The three main reasons she found was, a lack of positive feelings, unanswered questions about Jewish beliefs and the ability for our children to develop their unique emotional and religious potential. Technology did not even make it on the list. Sure, the internet can be used as a tool for those looking to get away but so can everything. By blaming technology loose focus, we should aim to fix the source of the problem.

We can keep trying to shelter our kids more and more until we suffocate them or we can choose to teach them how to live as a frum Jew in the new millennium. It takes work and dedication to find real solutions, but if we don’t, we might as well start preparing for the 2nd convention in five years from now, where I'm sure a new updated filter will be announced!

Dovid Teitelbaum

Director, Camp Sdei Chemed International

*My haskamas are from the 100’s of teens I know looking for real answers and real direction in this very confusing world we live in today; and from the elephant in the room.

At Beersheba Zoo, you have to be a Chareidie and dress Tznisdik to watch Monkeys and snakes!

The lions and monkeys were all in the nude, but the people watching them had to be dressed tznisdik ...... also you had to be 
either Chareidie or Yeshivish to enter the zoo.

 The men and their boy children were separated from the ladies and girl children....
I wonder how these guys made the Seder? Were they in different rooms?
Read the following from Ynet.com and laugh! Except if you were a Young Israel guy wearing a Kipah Serugah waiting in the hot broiling sun to get in!

The fourth day of the holiday drew large numbers of travelers out of their homes, but those who chose to visit the Beersheba zoo found closed gates. The zoo was open for the haredi public only, visitors argued, without any prior notice. A small sign on the zoo's gate confirmed the allegations, while the zoo's management insists that entrance to the zoo was not limited."We arrived at the zoo at 9:50, 10 minutes before it opens," said Avigail Kanterovich, who arrived at the zoo with her family, friends and their children.

"We tried to buy tickets, and the cashier told us they will not allow us to enter, since it is only for haredim today." According to her, there was no prior notice, and nowhere did it say that the zoo would be closed for visitors today according to religious affiliation. "They performed selection (DIN:Umm, where did  I hear this term before?) at the entrance, and didn't allow even national-religious people to enter. Only the haredim."

Kanterovich said that only after a long argument they were allowed entrance. "We were furious. They let us wait in the sun for 20 minutes, and no one came to talk with us." According to her, only later the management put up a sign stating the entrance was restricted to haredim only. Eventually they were allowed in the zoo.

The municipality: Living in harmony

Another visitor, Yael, also saw the sign. "Outside, the public was mixed," she recounts. "Eventually they let us in, but everything inside was separated for boys and girls." Yael too said the visitors had to wait outside for a while before they could enter.

The zoo's manager explained that the site was closed due to a special event for the Orthodox public, but everyone who wished to enter could do so if appropriately dressed.The Beersheba municipality said that as part of the holiday's event, the city held an event for the ultra-Orthodox public at the zoo. However, contrary to the allegations, entrance was allowed to everyone who wanted to participate in the event. "In Beersheba we're living in harmony, religious and seculars together, and we will continue to do so in the future," the municipality stated.

Ein Gedi on Chol Hamoed

What would the Monsey Rabbis say about this...

Little Chassidic boys enjoying Water Falls in Ein Gedi, Photo credit: Dusiznies™

Had the opportunity to see Chassidic little boys frolicking in the water falls, nearby was a lady in a bikini...

Birchas Kohanim at the Kotel!

Getting to the Kotel on the blisteringly sunny second day of Hol Hamoed, the intermediate days of Passover, was no easy task.

All the way from the Safra Square light rail station, visitors clogged the sidewalks of Jaffa Road – even blocking the doors of the train itself – en route to the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, a veritable testament to the art of weaving that rivaled the pedestrian chaos of New York City’s Times Square.

The exodus continued through Jaffa Gate and down the winding streets of the Old City, punctuated by a blaring musical performance at the entrance and salesmen all along the route who were eager to sell their wares to passersby in every language they could dredge up.

Jews and Christians of all colors and shapes from every corner of the world – from those in shtreimels and tzitzit to those in miniskirts and tank tops, from those in New York Knicks T-shirts to those in Victorian- era wide-brimmed chapeaus – were making their way to the city’s indisputably most popular point, the Western Wall, in Hebrew the Kotel.

All in all it took me about an hour-and-a-half to trek the mere 500 meters from Jaffa Gate to the Wall – albeit with a few wrong turns, necessary to even a veteran visitor of the area – with foot traffic coming to a complete and utter standstill at the intersection of David and Muristan streets, the cross-section between the Christian and Armenian quarters. Tour groups struggled to get by as mothers and fathers clenched their children’s wrists, and a particularly astute toddler decided to use one of the narrow stone ramps bridging the rigid cobblestone as a slide.

Turning the corner at Chain Gate and Hakotel Street, I joined an amalgamated mass – a line – next to the sign that simply reads “Wall,” indicating the final descent into the Kotel complex.

Once through security, I emerged on top of the stairwell looking down at an ocean of people, thousands upon thousands of visitors roaming the bright landscape below and clamoring to the ancient remains of the Temple’s retaining wall.

Several Magen David Adom emergency stations set up all around the area dealt with the potential consequences of the sundrenched, crowded, sweaty and densely populated venue, and also, apparently, served as a meeting point for lost children, husbands and wives as per the occasional loudspeaker announcement.

Families handed off cameras to one another, asking strangers to take their portraits in front of the sacred space as infants howled in the heat. An enormous sign at the entrance to the women’s side of the wall read “no entrance for strollers,” but strollers rolled through the gateway regardless, bumping freely among the rows of prayerful women whose children twirled around next to them. 

Toward the end of my visit, as I was leaning against one of several shady wood partitions in the center of the complex, a young woman and her two little girls approached me, asking if I had a pen and paper.

Tearing a sheet out of my notebook and handing over my pen, I watched as the girls wrote what were probably their first notes to tuck into the fractures among the Kotel's stones. Shyly, one of the girls – about five years old – went to the other side of the partition to write her message. “We won’t look,” her mother told her, giggling.

When she was finished, the little girl handed me back the pen with a wide grin.

Looking around, I saw hundreds of parents and their children, religious and not, partaking in that same, generation-old tradition and celebrating freedom on that sunny day together. And I realized that no matter how we divide ourselves and how different we may be, on that Hol Hamoed Passover afternoon at the Kotel, everyone had come to the same place in search of the same thing.

Monsey Rabbonim ban Uncle Moshe Concert!

Yes! It's true! 

 Our Holy Tzadikkim of Monsey, are bored and are going stir crazy being holed up with their families a whole Pesach, so they decided to send out a phone message to all residents of our "Holy" city, not to attend the Uncle Moshe, Bello the Clown and Miami Boys concerts because there is family seating!
So if you are a mother of little children, and your husband is working (The Holy Tzadikkim never thought of this scenario), they don't want you sitting with your boys. They would rather you sit separate and have your boy children sit on the men side alone waiting for some sexual pervert to molest them!
G-D forbid that families should be together!
The Rabbonim have apparently learned nothing from their previous ban of the "Lipa Smeltzer" concert. 
Lipa is doing better then ever despite the ban.
The Chazal state that "Rabbonim should not ban something that the people  will not by in large abide by"!!


I have a theory on why they banned the concerts. They want to take a break from learning (Bein Hazmanim)... they have no TV, no Ipad, no IPhone, no nothing, so they want to impart their misery on us innocent souls... as the famous adage goes "misery loves company" 
just my thoughts...

Perl Reich will have Reality Show! The fun begins!

Three ultra-Orthodox Jews ditch their strict religious lifestyle and join the sin-city world of secularism in a docudrama, called “Shunned,” about their new lives.

 
One of the chosen three, Pearlperry Reich, who is now embroiled in a divorce and custody battle for her four children, said she joined the cast to give voice to people who are often ignored — and to help her budding acting and modeling career.

“My main purpose is to create a positive Judaism,” said the 30-year-old stunner. “And it would be a really good opportunity for me to get my face out there.”

Noah Scheinmann, an executive producer at No Regrets Entertainment, said the company is now shopping “Shunned” to the networks, and is searching for a fourth cast member leaving the faith. Its allure, he said, lies in people’s relative ignorance of the Hasidic community. Divorce will be a key theme.
Of the three cast members, all met their betrothed through arranged marriages. They’re all divorced, or in the midst of a divorce.
Shauli Grossman, 24, who’s dating Reich, said he joined the show to help educate Orthodox teens. “There are a lot of people [for whom] this lifestyle is not a choice, and they would die to leave,” he said. “We’re married off at 17 or 18 before we even know what we want.”
Luzer Twersky, 26, was married after his first date at the age of 19. He likened his experience moving away from the ultra-Orthodox world to living in a one-room basement apartment your whole life, and then being thrust into Grand Central Terminal at rush hour.He grew up in the Belz and Satmar sects in Borough Park. Now he works in fashion.
“A lot of things are new to me. I saw ‘Star Wars’ for the first time last year,” he said. “It’s interesting. At least now I can understand what people are talking about; ‘May the force be with you.’ ”
And then there was bacon.
“When I had the first bite, I felt angry,” he said. “I felt how could my parents keep this from me?”
Twersky, divorced with two children, said that after leaving the faith, he played the field for a while. “The lifestyle didn’t fit me,” he said. “You can’t sleep with a lot of women. You can’t try a lot of different kinds of food. It’s all about fitting in.”
Now he’s in a committed relationship with a blond, Irish-Catholic girl from Arkansas, a plot line that “Shunned” will be sure to follow.
“She’s as shiksa as they come,” he said. “She’s f---king awesome!”

Oprah's interview with Chassidic families! Video

Part 1

Part 2

Pollard rushed to Hospital! Condition Critical

Pollard has been hospitalized for several days in the Federal Hospital near the Butner North Carolina prison. He is suffering from intense pain for which the doctors have not yet found an explanation.

Esther Pollard, the wife of the convicted American Naval Intelligence analyst who has spent 27 years in prison for spying for Israel, on Sunday entreated President Shimon Peres to act immediately to try to secure her husband's freedom before it is too late.

Esther was accompanied by MKs Uri Ariel and Ronit Tirosh who head the Knesset lobby for the release of Jonathan Pollard, along with members of The Committee for the Release of Jonathan Pollard. "I am the wife of Jonathan Pollard. I do not want to be the widow of Jonathan Pollard," she said her voice trembling with emotion and her face crumpling with anxiety.

Esther told Peres that she lives in daily terror that the phone will ring and inform her of yet another medical crisis. "It's just a matter of time before the next one occurs." The issue right now she said is to stabilize her husband's condition.

Pollard entreated Peres to use all the influence that he has at his disposal to ensure that Pollard is not returned to prison. "Sending him back to prison is a death sentence," she said.